A monitoring system for lumpy and cohesive zones in the blast furnace has been developed to help clarify the phenomena ocurring in the furnace and stabilize blast furnace operation. This system consists of hardware which measures the condition of gas and burden, and mathematical model which estimates the state in the furnace using the data obtained by the hardware. New sensors, such as a gas velocity meter using a hot wire velocity meter and a layer thickness meter using a magnetmeter, have been developed and practically applied to a blast furnace. The state in the blast furnace can be precisely clarified by these sensors and the model.
